A Taste Of Italy. Fiona McArthur
his chest so his head was out of the water. He could remember that frozen instant in time. Them all overboard, Gianni unconscious and only he with something to cling to. He couldn’t let go of his brother and, screaming out against God, he’d watched his parents sink below the surface.
So alone in the Mediterranean under a black sky. It had grown darker as the night came; Gianni awoke, and he’d had to tell him of their parents’ fate.
Such fear and swamping grief as they’d bobbed in the dark, imagining sharks and trying not to move too much, chilled to the core, fingers locked to the rope of the buoy. Knowing they would die.
Their rescue had been an anticlimax. A fishing boat pulled them in. Then the week in hospital alone and grieving, with visits from lawyers and one old aunt and her change-of-life son who’d hated them both.
He’d vowed that day he would be strong. And he had been.
He’d married Maria as his parents had betrothed them, and finally they’d had Paulo. His heritage safe again.
Then Maria had died and Paulo had been almost taken. He’d realised his life could fall apart again any moment and he’d needed to see his brother, his only family.
He, who’d never spoke of anything that exposed his soul, poured it all out to Tammy. It eased the burden of guilt he carried to tell her how he felt, without the complication of her knowing. From somewhere within it was as if the walls he’d erected around his emotions began to crumble, walls he’d erected not just since Maria’s death, but since that lost summer all those years ago when he’d felt he failed his parents. Walls that prevented him being touched by feelings that could flay him alive.
He continued to murmur into her hair as her softness lay against his chest. His native tongue disguising the compromise and giving freedom to express the beginning of something he hadn’t admitted to himself as he held her warmth against his heart. Her healing warmth. The way she touched his soul. He told the truth.
How sorry he was to have brought this on her. How the lure of her physical attraction for him had begun to change to a more complete absorption. How she made him feel alive as he hadn’t felt for years, even if sometimes it was with impatience or frustration when she thwarted him.
How beautiful she was, how she’d captured his attention after their first dance at his brother’s wedding, how he’d never felt that connection before with another woman, even his wife, and that made him feel even worse.
How these past few days he couldn’t stay away, spent his mornings and afternoons dragging his thoughts away from her so he could concentrate on business—something he had never had trouble with before—when in fact he was waiting for the evening when he could call on her.
The lonely nights dreaming of her in her house a street away, staring out through the window all night so he could start the whole process again.
How he’d glimpsed the promise of what could have grown between them, but now that had changed. Had to change. Once the boys were returned he would sit on a plane and watch the ground fall away beneath him, knowing she was still in Australia. So she and Jack would be safe, apart from the danger that followed him.
Knowing the distance of miles would not be the only distance that grew between them every second. But he would. Because she would be safe. Her son would be safe. His life was too complicated for this, the ultimate complication, but he could never regret these past few days. And he would never forget her.
Tammy listened. Her head on his chest, the regular beat of his heart under her cheek as his liquid words flowed over her. Some words and phrases she didn’t catch but most she did, like the honesty in his voice and the gist of his avowal. The sad acceptance of his promise brought tears to her eyes.
When she lifted her face to his, he saw the tears and softness in her eyes and he could no more stop himself from kissing the dampness away than he could stop himself drawing breath. Her arms came up around his neck and her face tilted until she lay suspended below him, mute appeal his undoing.
He stood with her in his arms, cradled against him, and strode to her room, a dim and disconnected haven from the reality which they both sought to escape.
To hide in each other, buffer the pain of their fears with the physical, the warmth and heat of each other’s bodies. At the very least the release might let them sleep.
Tammy knew she would regret this. But there were so many huge regrets—this tiny one was nothing if it gave her some flight from the pain, and comfort to them both.
He lowered her feet to the floor until she stood next to him, beside the bed, eyes locked as slowly they peeled away each other’s clothes, layer by layer, like the emotions Leon had peeled away for her, until she was as bare as him.
She stepped forward until her breasts brushed his chest and with a muffled groan he crushed her to him. And she knew it was her turn to comfort him. She needed to comfort someone because she couldn’t comfort Jack. Her hands curved around his neck and she pulled him closer so she could wrap herself around him, and draw his pain into her. In some unexplained way it eased her own suffering as they stood locked together in a ball of consolation that slowly unravelled into something else.
It started with a kiss, a slow gathering of speed. Kissing Leon was like running beside the wolf she thought him, down an unexpectedly steep hill, barely able to keep her feet. The momentum grew and her heart shuddered and skipped as she was swept alongside the rush of Leon, the heat of his chest, his powerful hands, his eyes above her, burning fiercely down as he searched her face for consent.
She reached up and pulled his mouth to hers again and she could feel the need in her chest and belly and in the heart of her as he gathered her closer, stroked her, murmured soft endearments of wonder in Italian which deepened the mist of escape and made her want to melt into him even more.
His hands slid down her back, marvelling at the smoothness of her skin, curling around her bottom and lifting her until her weight was in his hands. When he lifted her higher she rose against his chest. She’d never felt so small and helpless, dominated yet so safe and protected. She ran her cheek against the bulge of his arms, savouring the tension of steel beneath her skin from this mountain of a man who made her feel like a feather, as effortlessly he carried her until she felt the wall behind her. Then the nudge of him against her belly.
In a moment of clarity that came from the coolness of the wall on her back, she told herself she shouldn’t do this, didn’t deserve to experience this man at this moment in this way, would not die if she didn’t. But she didn’t really believe it.
She did believe she’d always regret not taking the gift of solace they offered each other in their darkest hour. And soon he would be gone.
He stilled, as if sensing her thoughts, and when she looked again into the midnight of his eyes, she knew she could stop this. Her heart felt the tear of denial, the breath of resolution and the tiniest lift of her skin away from his but something inside her snapped. No. She needed this for her sanity because with that one millimetre of distance between them, the outside world pummelled her and the pain made her wrap her legs around his corded thighs, hook her ankles and implore him to save her.
Afterwards, they lay together on the bed, en-twined, her head on his chest as he stroked her hair and, against her will, against any conviction she’d be able to, she fell into a dreamless sleep and rested.
Leon listened to the slowing of her breathing and his arm tightened protectively around her. How would he forget this woman? What had happened between them was something he hadn’t expected and he certainly hadn’t foreseen the severity of the impact of their collision.
More barricades had tumbled under her hands, barriers he’d closely guarded and never planned to breach. He would regret this night and yet could not wish it undone. His eyes widened in the dark when he realised what else he’d done. Or not done.
His sins compounded. Not only had he not protected her son, he’d not protected her.
The flash of light on his silenced phone was muted by his shirt pocket